He opened the book under the Tiffany lamp, whose bulb no longer flickered.
'Listen to this,' Powys said.
'Chapter One
SIGNS OF PSYCHIC ATTACK
We live in the midst of invisible forces whose effects alone we perceive… Normally… we are protected by our very incapacity to perceive.'
'Verity,' Juanita said.
'Just a passing thought. OK. It's about page fifty. Ah. 'I had received serious injury from someone who, at considerable cost to myself, I had disinterestedly helped, and I was sorely tempted to retaliate. Lying on my bed resting one afternoon…''
'Her resentment materialises at the bedside.' Juanita shuddered. 'As a kind of grey wolf.'
Powys sat on the bed. Held a cup of tea to her lips. 'Before we read the rest, I have to tell you where I went this evening.'
'It's like a truly horrible Grimm's fairytale,' Juanita said.
After he'd told her about Violet and Roger Ffitch and Pixhill, he told her about Archer. The blood and the fire and the pink teddy.
'No wonder the nannies were horrible,' Juanita said. 'Those weren't nannies, they were bodyguards.'
'He never knew for sure,' Powys said. 'And he still doesn't know. That's what he's had to live with. Makes you feel sorry for the old bastard, doesn't it?'
'It makes a lot of things clear. Poor kid. 'The retained placenta – I vaguely knew about that. Not being well up in midwifery, I didn't know about the amount of blood-letting it caused. Did I tell you that when she was little – and not so little – she used to go missing? And quite often she'd be found asleep in the Chalice Well garden.'
'The Blood Well.'
'A well's a kind of symbolic womb, isn't it? She was going back to what she couldn't remember. Oh, Powys…'
'I know. We've got to find her. All this gets worse.'
He picked up the book. 'Now Violet – no nonsense type, even then – is more than a bit alarmed at what she's conjured. She tries the stern approach: down boy. And to her faint surprise the wolf turns into a dog and trots off and fades away. But Violet's not daft, and she's not terribly surprised when another woman in the house gets into a flap, claiming her dreams have been disrupted by images of wolves and when she woke up there were eyes shining at her from a corner of the room. Violet's seriously disturbed by now. She goes off to see Doc Moriarty, her teacher, and he confirms her worst fears.'
'That the beast is part of her. And that if she doesn't get it back she'll be, er… '
'No longer a nice person,' Powys said. 'It's a left-hand path situation. If she doesn't get it back, she'll be on the Satanic slippery slope.'
'But she does get it back, doesn't she?'
'Not easily. But, yeh, in the end it all worked out because she helped Roger with his problem and she put the Dark Chalice on hold. With a little help from George Pixhill and the man I hesitate to call Uncle Jack.'
'This is leading somewhere, isn't it?'
Powys poured the rest of the tea, 'According to Sam, on at least two occasions recently, Diane's felt her rage at Archer – which probably goes back even farther than she knows – becoming almost… detached from her, fermenting into patches of mist. Feral smells in the room.'
'Oh my God.'
'How much has she studied Dion Fortune? Would she know that story?'
'Oh dear. What you have to understand about Diane is that she doesn't have the magician mentality. Even if you believe in reincarnation the idea of her being the next life of Dion Fortune is slightly preposterous. Diane's a romantic, a mystic, very probably more than a bit psychic…'
'Someone who, if DF is still around in some form, she might want to protect?'
'The Third Nanny,' Juanita said. 'Sits on the bed and doesn't leave a dent in the mattress. Or something. The more you think about it, the more you realise that if anyone needs a third nanny, it's Diane.'
'But, look – this is important – you don't think Diane's capable of conjuring an elemental force?'
'Are you kidding?'
'In that case, someone's sending it to her. Someone who's been working over a long period to corrupt her.'
Juanita closed her eyes.
'Someone,' Powys said, 'who wanted her back in Glastonbury at this particular time. Who was disturbing her making her restless, sending her images of the Tor. A very practised magician – or group of magicians – who can conjure elementals, like the wolf-thing. Like a black bus in fact.'
'Why would Moulder have a bus delivered? Jesus, Powys, none of this is making sense. I'm not up to making sense of it. Let's just call the police.'
'The police wouldn't be able to find her. And even if they did, they wouldn't know how to handle any of this. It's down to us. Or you.'
Juanita shrank back against the oak headboard. She looked very small and frail in the four-poster.
'You've got to rediscover the Goddess,' Powys said. 'In yourself. You've got to go back to the heart.'
THIRTEEN
In the Meadwell kitchen. Woolly and Sam were playing three-card brag by torchlight.
'Where'd you learn to play like this?' Sam said. 'Old hippies, taking people's money is not what they're about.'
Every time he lost, it was down to Sam to go and check they were alone, which meant an ominous trek through that bloody eerie dining room.
'You're just not concentrating,' Woolly said. 'I can understand that. But you got to keep playing, man. You let go of your mind in this house, it… You just don't, OK.'
'Something happen to you?'
'I don't know,' Woolly growled. 'That's the other thing, you never quite know.'
'Some things you know,' Sam said, not thinking of the house.
Woolly picked up on it. He grinned. 'She's a wonderful girl, Sammy. Surprised me, though, I got to say. You coming round to it. After that Charlotte.'
'Mmm, well,' Sam said. 'Something happened.'
'Like?'
'Like why a confirmed atheist and non-believer in anything you can't either spend or save from predatory upperclass gits with hunting horns is suddenly scared to go in that room next door.'
'Oh,' said Woolly. 'Like that.'
'I've seen… bloody Pixhill,' Sam said. 'I've seen Pixhill, OK? Old bloke in a deerstalker hat. Though I like to think he wouldn't ever have stalked a deer. And don't ask me – don't anybody ever ask me – about his eyes.'
'Sheesh,' Woolly said. 'When was this?'
And so Sam told him. And because it was cards-on the-table night, he told Woolly about the devastation of the trees. The road.
Woolly threw his newly dealt hand on the table.
'You're not winding me up?'
'Tonight I'm not winding anybody up, Woolly. Tonight, winding up is on hold.'
'I don't know what to do.' Woolly said.
'Don't do anything. Juanita said to hang on.'
'Until when?'
